Refugees stranded after Afghan violence - UN

Hundreds of Afghan refugees returning home after years of exile in Iran have been stranded at the border between the two countries following violence in the city of Herat, the United Nations said yesterday.

The world body's High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, said some of the returnees were staying in emergency camps or shelters on the Iranian side after his UNHCR agency was forced to suspend convoys by the incidents.

"This suspension comes at the worst possible time for Afghanistan when increasing numbers of refugees are coming back to their homeland and just a few weeks ahead of a crucial election that will shape the future of the country," he declared.

Afghans are due to vote in a UN-organised presidential poll on October 9.

The UNHCR halted its operations, which have been transferring up to 3,000 people a day in recent weeks from Iran through Herat, the major city in western Afghanistan, after attacks on UN compounds there at the weekend.

Angry supporters of the city's powerful governor Ismail Khan, dismissed by President Hamid Karzai, left the UN headquarters in Herat in ashes, according to one senior UN official in a protest over his dismissal.

A total of seven people died and up to 50 were injured when the protesters clashed with US and Afghan government forces sent to halt the disturbances, witnesses in the city said.